[Rules p.1] Things that annoy you guys. 100 percent. Not gonna lie

I've tried uninstalling an update on my laptop 3 times now and restarted it. Every time I've logged back in, the update is still there.

Death's Head wrote:Around the end of September I received a letter from eon (my energy supplier) to tell me that my current tariff ends 9th November and I can either change to a new one (a few hundred pounds per year more than the current one) or if I do nothing, they will move me to some BS standard one (about £600 per year more than the current one). After checking on uSwitch and realising that although the new one is BS (slightly fed up with utility costs going up a few hundred per year) decide to switch to the one mentioned in the letter. After waiting 15 minutes to talk to someone, turns out the one in the letter is no longer available and I must check their site or uSwitch to see their best offer as the person on the phone apparently has no access.

Of course, their new offer is pure BS and a few hundred quid worse than the best offer in their letter. Clearly I'll be moving provider but feel we should stick it to the man. Can I ask that you all refrain from using electricity and gas for a month? At the end of this time all the suppliers will drop their prices desperate for someone to use their precious gas and electricity units.

For my part, I will selflessly continue to use electricity and gas allowing me to track the fate of the suppliers and post here so when you are all back, you can see what happened, as it happened.

Thanks and see you all back here next month!

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub

Just do a comparison there, pay down any debit on the account with E-on so they can't reject the switch and they will do it for you.

I've started a switch to Avro, EDF have been a bunch of shites on the phone and wasn't surprised they have something like 5000 1/10 reviews on TrustPilot whereas when I checked Avro have an average of 9.1/10 across almost 8,500 reviews and they're much cheaper . The only reason the energy moguls get away with it is because they can and they're too bloody big. I originally switched from Npower to PFP Energy a couple of years ago which was massively better but unfortunately I was forced into EDF at the moment after racking up about £600 for a few weeks of energy on a Deemed Tarriff (same as standard variable tarriff) after moving and being under so much stress I wasn't managing stuff as well (something they tried to claim I was lying about despite having medical problems), something which can go to hell along with the scum that dictate these costs and prey on millions of people (and it was Nuclear energy as well so it has strawberry float all to do with fossil fuel prices).

I already have my replacement planned, Bulb, and they will cover any exit fees. Just annoying that the "big 6" (soon to be 5) maximise their profits rather than passing down the savings they make. These smaller companies can't negotiate bigger savings, they are just making less profit.

I'm with bulb and they are very good, open about everything and not pricey.

Very goodly.

Would go with bulb too, but because we have to manage things very carefully, we prefer fixed direct debits, which Bulb don't do. So if costs go up over time your bill will scale with that. At least it doesn't mean a jump each year tariffs get updated. We need to know we have enough every month to cover things like repayments so if we lose £15 to energy one month just that small amount can create a bottleneck.

Green Gecko wrote:Would go with bulb too, but because we have to manage things very carefully, we prefer fixed direct debits, which Bulb don't do. So if costs go up over time your bill will scale with that. At least it doesn't mean a jump each year tariffs get updated. We need to know we have enough every month to cover things like repayments so if we lose £15 to energy one month just that small amount can create a bottleneck.

I thought they were fixed and review at a certain point? I wasn't aware any supplier varied the payments each month that would be BS for everyone.

Or have I misunderstood what you wrote?

Green Gecko wrote:Would go with bulb too, but because we have to manage things very carefully, we prefer fixed direct debits, which Bulb don't do. So if costs go up over time your bill will scale with that. At least it doesn't mean a jump each year tariffs get updated. We need to know we have enough every month to cover things like repayments so if we lose £15 to energy one month just that small amount can create a bottleneck.

The monthly is fixed, you can change it is you want and they tell you 3 months ahead dof any rise and how much they expect that rise will cost you.

Ive been with them about a year at the rises haven't changed my monthly at all.

Plus with the referral thing you start with a £50 buffer and can leave with no cost.

My understanding was the tariffs aren't fixed for say a year so they can go up or down, so what you actually incur cost-wise varies, sorry I didn't really mean direct debits. Bulb are basically one tariff which is "cheap" isn't it? But when I did comparisons that wasn't actually the cheapest overall so I want a guarantee of that. I might be wrong. I need to save as much money as possible after getting royally ripped off by EDF. It sucks so much to think all of that money (hundreds) basically just gone because of profiteering and no other reason. Something I can much better put into a holiday for the first time in 7 years or equipment for the business!! Ugh

You can get a fixed direct debit yeah but depending on usage and your projected costs over the year they can still change them whenever they like and just have to inform you because it is set up to avoid falling into arrears over the course of 12-24 months. I've had direct debits increases from something sensible like 30 to 80 and then down to 60, on the other hand I've had them changed from £60 a month to £180 without warning. Same company that did that ended up owing us about £600, recalculated it and then we owed them £800 and all kinds of gooseberry fool got it written off in the end because they'd pantsed up billing so royally and caused us an enormous amount of distress trying to find amounts we couldn't possibly afford to pay.

I suspect it came down to a faulty Economy 7 meter timer that was putting energy on during the day even though it was set to night. It was running super slowly or too fast or something. Bloody storage heaters, just put the strawberry floating heating on when I say so and I'll pay for whatever I use.

At the moment we can look forward to our meter just having been exchanged but with the wrong serial number so I have no confidence at all they are going to know it has changed from cubic feet to cubic metres which means, yep, 3x the usual energy bills and it'll probably be our fault for not notifying them even though I have.

strawberry floating loathe energy suppliers, I can't think of a worse utility for headaches over what should be such a simple thing.

It's even more exasperating when you're actually way below the average usage levels and everything in the house is energy efficient, so much for trying to be enviro friendly etc it's still going to cost you an arm and a leg!

One time our gas use was so low it automatically triggered an investigation where we had to send over photos of the meter read because they thought it must be a mistake. Er no we just don't run the heating unless it's like December-Feb and it's below zero, and we have an electric cooker. It's not that hard to save energy and money, sorry but you're not having it anyway

Standing charges are where they really try to strawberry float you over.
Not using much gas or electric? Well strawberry float you, you're going to pay just for the privilege of having a meter.

Found a supplier with no standing charges? Well strawberry float you too because you're going to get charged twice as much per unit instead.

Yeah, it supposedly covers infrastructure and supply to the door, despite what you use, but ermm yeah I don't really believe the charges are passed to the relevant electrical/gas board to carry out actual maintenance and infrastructure improvements, attend gas leaks etc.

Lagamorph wrote:Standing charges are where they really try to strawberry float you over.
Not using much gas or electric? Well strawberry float you, you're going to pay just for the privilege of having a meter.

Found a supplier with no standing charges? Well strawberry float you too because you're going to get charged twice as much per unit instead.

Standing charge is utter BS, I'm sure that wasn't always there. These companies have too many people looking into ways to charge us for basically nothing and there is strawberry float all we can do about it.

Still speculating and having a good rant here but I suspect they came into popularity when they started to realise that people didn't necessarily need to have their electrical devices like TVs and computers on all of the time and so once people started actually paying attention to green initiaives and the fact they were literally wasting their own money on nothing whatsoever they starting turning things off and then oh look where has the gravy train gone? We better start charging you just in case you turn something on

I'm not super strict or anything but I'm the kind of person who turns outlets and light switches off for the day if I am done in there (also for safety reasons because I've lost more than one expensive piece of equipment because of a surge), heaven forbid if I'm not using I'll turn the strawberry floating thing off.

I bet since LCD TVs and laptops started to completely replace CRT monitors utilities saw a noticeable dip as well. Those 28, 32, 37+ CRTs really were monsters, practically steampunk in terms of overgrown old technology.

I do still sort of miss them, dat black

Death's Head wrote:...These companies have too many people looking into ways to charge us for basically nothing and there is strawberry float all we can do about it.

Electrical and gas companies need to take inspiration from videogame publishers. Pre-order your electric now and get the deluxe power pack (with exclusive eco-burst and a 7PM boost for twenty days) for just £899.99! .

jawafour wrote:

Death's Head wrote:...These companies have too many people looking into ways to charge us for basically nothing and there is strawberry float all we can do about it.

Electrical and gas companies need to take inspiration from videogame publishers. Pre-order your electric now and get the deluxe power pack (with exclusive eco-burst and a 7PM boost for twenty days) for just £899.99! .

I just bought the Toaster DLC for £34.99 – it’s great as it provides just enough of a boost in power to make one slice of toast.

I am tempted to buy the full Season Pass so that I can have toast every day instead of just spending £34.99 every time I fancy it.

Moggy wrote:I just bought the Toaster DLC for £34.99...

It begins . Have you thought about the "Boil-a-cuppa" pack? £2.99 for one day, £6.19 for three days or - BEST VALUE! - £79.99 for 30 days! The "Toast your scwun (s cone)" pack is only £1.49 a day, too .

jawafour wrote:

Moggy wrote:I just bought the Toaster DLC for £34.99...

It begins . Have you thought about the "Boil-a-cuppa" pack? £2.99 for one day, £6.19 for three days or - BEST VALUE! - £79.99 for 30 days! The "Toast your scwun (s cone)" pack is only £1.49 a day, too .

I won 10 days worth of cuppas from a lootbox so I don't need to buy the pack for a while. The lootbox was only £49.99 so I got an absolute bargain.

Moggy wrote:I won 10 days worth of cuppas from a lootbox so I don't need to buy the pack for a while. The lootbox was only £49.99 so I got an absolute bargain.

Customers now have the option to liven-up their home energy purchases. This definitely-not-gambling approach is dynamically shifting customer perspectives, disrupting the tired old offerings and delivering choice .

I bet that Deaths Head will sign up soon .

jawafour wrote:

Moggy wrote:I won 10 days worth of cuppas from a lootbox so I don't need to buy the pack for a while. The lootbox was only £49.99 so I got an absolute bargain.

Customers now have the option to liven-up their home energy purchases. This definitely-not-gambling approach is dynamically shifting customer perspectives, disrupting the tired old offerings and delivering choice .

I bet that Deaths Head will sign up soon .

It just makes it all so much more fun. Why pay a flat rate for electricity when you can buy a lootbox and maybe win the right to have one hot shower?

Green Gecko wrote:My understanding was the tariffs aren't fixed for say a year so they can go up or down, so what you actually incur cost-wise varies, sorry I didn't really mean direct debits. Bulb are basically one tariff which is "cheap" isn't it?

The rate is variable but for me at least was way less than anyone else so they could raise it a few times before they hit the next person.

They don't lock you in like others so you make a saving day 1 and get £50 if you use a referral from a current customer (effectively saving you more) then if they do raise the price and it's not working you can just leave no exit fees etc.

It leaves me at risk to rising prices as it isn't on a fix but as the rate is lower than the fix I figure it's fine as they would need raise the price a lot to hit the rate of the fixed rates and if they did or it looked like there was going to be hikes I could jump to a fixed rate with someone.

You also get £50 for each referral you make so if you get some peeps to jump over you save yourself more. Tis a good system a d shows what can be done if you aren't focusing on giving you shareholders epic returns over all else.

People who ruin original trailers, montages etc on YouTube by plastering they're shitty music all over it.